Week in Review

Monday we decided to go to Jethro's for their wing eating contest. Our friend Kyle was in it for a fundraising event for The Native Fund. It was fun and crazy how many wings these people ate in a total of 15 minutes. (The winners ate 102 wings!)

Piper saw her friend Louis from school....who just happens to be the nephew of a friend of mine! Small world! They played and enjoyed their own wings!

The rest of the week was our typical, gymnastics and such......I took a half day of PTO on Friday since Presley had an early out. We did lunch at Applebee's and then met my mom to get pedicures!

After pedicures we headed home for bit and hung out. Once Steve got home, we picked up Piper from preschool and headed to Adventureland to get our pictures taken for our season passes. Then we did dinner at Spectators and headed to Boston's baseball game in Bondurant! It was SO windy but the girls ran around and it was fun to watch Boston in his game.

 Saturday we hung out in the morning, the girls went outside to play until we left about 2 pm. We decided to head down to Captain Roy's to watch The Sheet play. They are such a cool, different band that we have discovered over the last 9 months. And Captain Roy's is a great outdoor place, right on the river, perfect to enjoy the sun and music.

There was a group there who was celebrating some 50th birthday parties and had 210 cupcakes there....Piper was not afraid to go up to the table and take one for her...and then one for Presley!

We stopped by El Mariachi for dinner on our way home and then headed home to enjoy more of the night! Steve opened the shed and we watched a little Descendants. Presley always gets up and dances to this movie (and any movies that have singing and dancing!). Then we cuddled up with the fire until about 9, when it was time for all of us to go to bed!

We slept until 9 am.....Not sure what time the girls got up but they were on their Ipads when I got out of bed at 9:20. We spent most of the day, doing garage sale stuff, laundry and hanging out. The girls played by the shed and running in and out of the house for HOURS! Steve did a Walmart run and made an awesome dinner! Another great weekend with the family and nice weather! We love it!

Spring?

We have had some teasing of spring weather....kinda warm, kinda windy, kinda cloudy but we have been trying to enjoy it. We have a lot of time with the neighbors outside which is nice since it seems that most people hibernate over the winter, including us! 

Friday night after having El Mariachi for dinner and playing outside for a bit we ended our night watching The Greatest Showman! It was really good and our girls LOVE musicals and this was right up their (our) alley! :)

Saturday we hung out, getting more garage sale stuff done, laundry done and just cleaning in general (can you say DUST???). There was some more outdoor time with the neighbors and Steve got out his remote control car. The girls LOVE running from it and having him chase them around.

It's hard to tell if they are scared or excited! 

 Rachel and Rebecca weren't sure about it either but in the end they all have fun!

Steve did smoke some pork on Saturday so we had awesome pulled pork for dinner and then

headed to Van Dees for some ice cream. Then we watched The Greatest Showman.....again!

Sunday we spent almost all day outside since the weather was a littler warmer!

We went to the new Terra Park in Johnston. It was really nice! We tried to go fishing but didn't catch anything. We walked around the pond and spent some time at the park. 

After the park, we headed home, they were so excited when I said they could wear shorts if they wanted! We had some more good time with the neighbors. Piper got out her police costume and they took turns handcuffing each other!

Overall a great weekend with lots of family time!  We are ready for nice weather all the time!

A Week Behind

Some how I am a week behind in posting and not for any good reason except me being lazy. Last weekend we didn't do much, Saturday we headed out to the Converse store to get some new spring shoes and we all ended up getting a pair. The Altoona outlet mall is pretty cool but will be more fun when the weather is nice.

We wanted to go to lunch somewhere but Piper was being a brat. So Presley and I ran into Target while Steve stayed with Piper in the car. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon at home hanging out. Steve went out that night for his brothers birthday and the girls and I ran to get some ice cream at Van Dees. Other than that we have been doing a lot of spring cleaning and purging. I've been going thru baby clothes! We should have at least 15 totes of clothes for my parents garage sale!

Even on Sunday we just did more organizing and cleaning. We did venture out for dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings though!

Monday night we drove to Creston for a visitation. Our friend's dad passed away so we wanted to pay our respects to Larry. The girls went with us and did very well for the long drive, being around people they don't know and it being their first time at a visitation (we had to explain the open casket to them also, such awkward conversations to have with your kids)

Tuesday night I took Presley to gymnastics. I was able to go for a run while she was in class, however I didn't account for the fact the path I took would be so windy and didn't have sidewalks! I struggled! I did get to see the last half of her class and her doing flips off the balance beam into the foam pit.

Wednesday Steve took Piper to gymnastics and I made dinner with frozen pizza! :)

Thursday was Steve's 39th birthday and the weather was finally nice! I took 3 hours of PTO and left about 1:00 and met him at Mullets for a late lunch and some beers on the patio! It was so nice to see the sun! We hung out there until about 3 and then ventured over to Captain Roy's. We had heard of this place and wanted to check it out. It was pretty cool, right on the river, a lot of outdoor space too! Then we picked up the girls and headed to Perkins for Steve's birthday dinner (his choice!)

Friday I had 3 more hours of PTO for Piper and I to go to the eye doctor. I haven't been in years (shame on me!) but my eye sight hasn't changed, thankfully! Piper has perfect eye sight right now but she said a lot of times the eyes will start changing between 6-7 yrs old, so we can go back in a couple years and hope for the best! I need to get Presley into the eye doctor now!

This weekend has been lazy and the weather is depressing. Saturday the girls didn't get out of their pj's, we did make cupcakes b/c Brittney's birthday was Friday but other than that didn't do much.

We had plans to go out for Steve's birthday that night so that is really the only reason I got dressed! We met some friends at Firebirds in WDSM for dinner. It was SO good! I little pricey but it was really good! Then we headed back towards home to The Boat House where a bunch of our friends were meeting us. We had such a good turn out of friends and neighbors that came out for Steve's birthday it was fun! We were out too late for sure but it was a good time! I was really bad at taking pictures and didn't take any until after 10 pm when a lot of people had already left.

Brock, Todd, Todd, Matt, Jordan and Steve

Today has been LAZY. Steve and I are tired. We did do some more garage sale organizing, Steve did make a good dinner, I had a short nap. We were going to take the girls to the library for their Choosing Kindness campaign, they were showing Wonder and having some crafts and anti-bullying stuff, but even the girls didn't want to leave home so we have just been hanging out!

Third grade concert

Piper has been telling us that she wants to go to a concert....I am not sure that Presley's 3rd grade music concert is what she had in mind!

Thursday night I picked Presley up from Girls on the Run at 5, went home, ate dinner, changed and headed back out to get her to the (new) Johnston High School for her concert.

Talking with her friend Leah and Quinnlyn

 It was the 3rd and 4th grade concert and we actually don't know any 4th graders at her school! (There are about 100 3rd graders in her school and about 75 4th graders) My parents were able to come join us too! It was only 45 minutes so it wasn't too long and it was pretty cute.

 So serious when it was her turn to play the calypso!

 She would look out into the crowd and see me, and then start smiling! It was adorable!

Thursday and Friday I really struggled with my job. Steve knows I'm not happy in this department, I just don't have a lot of options to leave right now. I did apply for 4 remote underwriting jobs on Friday, I doubt any will pan out and I doubt that any will be able to get close to the 32 days of PTO that I have a year. So we'll see!
Friday Steve suggested El Mariachi for dinner, I think he thought that it would make me happy after a day at work! He was right :)

Monday Funday

So many of you know that I am an American Idol fan. Always have been, always will be. Phillip Phillips was on in 2012 and I loved him since the very beginning. He did a show in DSM in July and believe it or not, I didn't see him in concert...so when I heard he was coming back, I knew this was my chance! We had no idea what kind of turn out there would be at Wooly's on a Monday night! But it was busy and a good crowd!

The opening band was The Ballroom Thieves....they were good, different than anything I have really heard but we did like them.

 Love his voice and he is too cute!

The concert really didn't last very late but Steve was a trooper and hung around until they were basically kicking us out. I wanted a picture with him and the only way out of Wooly's is the front door, so I was willing to wait. We did, it was cold and then they basically said he wasn't coming out any time soon. Really I don't think he likes people or crowds so he wanted the 20 of us still waiting, to leave :)

Easter

Last week was more of the same, me getting up late every day b/c I don't want to go to work. Steve getting up late b/c I get up late, gymnastics, girls on the run....Thursday we moved desks at work so we actually got out at 3 pm and decided to have a social event at Sully's. The turn out was pretty good and it was a good way to get to know some more people from my new department. I was home about  6 and then Steve headed out to pick up his friend Todd from the hospital. He had been there all week with his daughter and was aching to get out and have a beer, so Steve stepped up and did his friendly duty! :)

Friday we didn't do much. Steve made dinner, we hung out and dyed eggs for Easter! 

 I can't get a normal picture of her anymore. Such a goof!

 Part of the sass and attitude that we get for EVERYTHING!

Make her stop growing up!

Saturday we got up and ready, Presley was drawing an Easter picture to give to my parents. She asked me what other 'Easter things' she could draw.....

Me: Flowers, trees

we dropped the kids off at my parents house so we could attend the funeral for the Sharps in Creston. It was really sad but it was a really good tribute to them. SO many tears and so many people. It is so hard to see the classmates of the kids struggle thru the service. Afterwards we were able to go to the gathering and chat with so many people. The family was very thankful and seem to be holding up as best as can be expected. We left about 5 and my parents dropped the kids off at our house after dinner about 6ish. 

Sunday morning the Easter bunny at come by. The girls were so excited to find the eggs. 36 total eggs and it took them no time at all to hunt them all down! 

We ate some candy, the girls decorated these stepping stone things they got in their baskets, I ran 1.5 miles (getting ready for my 5k with Presley in May!) and we got ready to head to my parents house for Easter lunch. 

We hung out, talked, had some appetizers and then had a prime rib dinner. So good!

Handsome Jordan

So cute!

My parents do a nice Easter egg hunt for the kids. Each kid gets their own color eggs to find and then there were 5 glitter eggs, with money inside. Piper got $1 and Presley got the $20 egg!

We hung out, the kids ate way too much candy and we headed home about 6 and got ready for our busy week ahead.